An imaging apparatus for imaging a specimen, which is created by smearing a sample such as blood on a slide glass and performing staining processing, and the like, with a microscope and a camera is conventionally known. An image imaged by the imaging apparatus is used for automatic cell classification, and manual cell classification by an operator.
In this type of specimen imaging apparatus, the supplied specimen is automatically transported to the microscope, and automatically collected to a predetermined collecting location after being performed with imaging by the camera. For example, in the specimen imaging apparatus disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/304722, after a magazine storing a specimen is installed in a cavity, a handling device grips the specimen and takes out the specimen from the magazine, and then transports the specimen to an optical system including the microscope, and the like. The specimen after the image is imaged in the optical system is again returned to the magazine by the handling device.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,501,495 discloses an automated microscope system for slidably dropping a tray supporting a plurality of slide glasses into a storage box at a predetermined discharging stage after imaging is finished to store the slide glasses in a standing manner in the storage box.
The magazine used in the specimen imaging apparatus described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/304722 stores the plurality of specimens so as to be lined in the up-down direction in a horizontal posture. An opening is formed at a side surface of the magazine, so that the specimen is placed in and taken out through the opening.
However, if immersion oil is used in the imaging of the specimen, the immersion oil that attached to the specimen drops in various directions thus attaching to the side surface, the bottom surface, and the like inside the magazine, and may also attach to other specimens in the magazine. In particular, if the immersion oil attached to the magazine leaks to the outside from the opening of the side surface, the periphery of the magazine may get dirty. Thus, a step for washing the periphery of the magazine may become necessary, or an immersion oil may possibly attach to a mechanism, or the like at the periphery of the magazine thus adversely affecting of the operation of such mechanism, and the like. Furthermore, since the magazine itself does not move inside the specimen imaging apparatus, the transportation distance of the specimen until reaching the magazine may become long, which increases the possibility of oil dropping during the transportation and getting the transportation path dirty.
The storage box used in the automated microscope system described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,501,495 is bottomed and has the upper side opened, where a plurality of slide glasses is stored therein in a standing state. However, since the storage box itself is fixed and does not move, the transportation path of the slide glass becomes long, which increases the possibility of the immersion oil dropping during the transportation and getting the transportation path dirty. One storage box is merely set in the specimen imaging apparatus, and thus the relevant storage needs to be changed to another storage box by humans when it becomes filled with slide glasses. The apparatus is thus inevitably stopped during such time thus degrading the operation efficiency.